Simple Object Access Protocol

lastmod 2025-11-26created 2014-10-1717 edits

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a protocol for exchanging XML-based messages over a computer network via commonly known protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, and SMTP. SOAP serves as the foundation for basic message delivery in web services. SOAP has several kinds of message patterns, but usually it follows the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) pattern, in which one network node (the client) sends a request message to another node (the server), and the server responds to the message immediately. SOAP took the envelope/header/body structure and the concepts of transport and interaction neutrality from XML-RPC and WDDX.

SOAP is designed on an XML basis with a design pattern that combines a header and a body. The "header" is optional and holds meta information such as repetition, security, and transactions. The "body" part holds the main information.

Categories

• csoap
• Simple SOAP
• SOAP C++ (server & client) library
• zeep (python)
• gSOAP
• valkka
• ONVIF:Example:FindDevice - How to find and communicate with cameras on the network via ONVIF
• spyne

SOAP-over-UDP

See also

• Representational State Transfer (REST, RESTful)
• Service-oriented architecture
• Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
• WS-Discovery (Web Services Dynamic Discovery)
• ONVIF

Favorite site

• Wikipedia (en) description of SOAP
• Building SOAP-based web services ¹
• API usage example (SOAP)
• What is SOAP!?
• SOA(Service Oriented Architecture) & SOAP(Simple Object Access Protocol) ²
• [Recommended] ONVIF, SOAP, and web services ³ (ONVIF, SOAP)

References